


new year's eve

by ruruka



Category: The Ren & Stimpy Show
Genre: DRUG USAGE WARNING this entire thing is about ren and stimpy doing coke together. please., M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:22:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28488246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ruruka/pseuds/ruruka
Summary: i take no credit for this idea it was just a really funny request.
Relationships: Stimpson "Stimpy" J. Cat/Ren Höek
Kudos: 3





	new year's eve

They live in the trunk of a cedar tree for the better part of 1990. Then winter hits, and Ren supposes they’ve saved enough to rent the one story house on the corner of Podunk Road instead of the carved out tree they’d stuck a door on. Because it’s cold in there. And his fur is thin. Their new house has lots of outlets to plug a space heater into. That’s what Ren likes to call luxury. 

Stimpy, if Ren can read his mind (which he knows he can, because he’s crouched over the coffee table three lines deep, so, yes, he can most definitely read minds and he can most definitely feel that the color red is heavier than yellow and most blues); he reads Stimpy’s mind and knows he’s happy with their lives now, too, just how they are with the space heater humming next to the couch and knitting needles hooking through idle yards of pink yarn. Ren never asks him what he’s making, but things with pink yarn most always end up being embroidered _REN_ on the hem, so he relaxes into the throw pillows behind him to marinate in _oh boy can’t wait_ and asks no questions. 

“Could we put on a record?” _does_ get asked, though it’s by Stimpy in his state of pausing to lay his knitting work at his lap and look Ren in his wildly dilated eyes. “It’s so quiet around here.”

“Yeah, it’s quiet,” he says back, and up springs to his feet to poke a finger between the blinds and peer surreptitiously outside. It’s black and foggy, wintertime, three hours until January type of cold and dark and dry. Ren slaps the blinds closed again on his way to the record player. It’s quiet, just like Stimpy said, so quiet he can hear the carpet fibers groaning underneath his every step, the same way he listens for the creak of the record player’s arm when he lifts it between two fingers. He bends at the same time, so maybe it just might be his own sinew that’s doing all the talking, but then it’s his mouth, because he’s leant over watching the bare carpet in the corner for a good minute and a half before thinking to say, “Where’s _Honky Château?_ ”

“I don’t think we’ve unpacked the records yet,” Stimpy says, and Ren says, still bent in half, “What did you ask me to put one on for, then?”, and Stimpy, for his finishing move of the tennis match here, smiles so dumbly sweet as he ever does. “I forgot.”

Ren’s mouth droops lamely before he jumps back up in so buoyant a fashion it’s like God has lifted his chronic state of aches and pains. Energy, yes, it’s a wonderful thing, feels it course through his every last limb down to the fingertips. Perhaps he’s standing there by the dusty record player a while just _feeling_ it _rake_ through his muscles and nerve endings, so long so that he’s only reminded he’s still living by Stimpy chittering from across the living room, “Wanna play Monotony?”

“Just shut up,” Ren says back, but doesn’t exactly know why, doesn’t know why his chipped fingernails find their way to his head and scratch his fur burning. Breath brimming up his shoulders, he stalks to the couch again and sits on its edge, knees bent up and open, gazing over the coffee table with bloodshot eyes (and he’d felt all those vessels open, too, known them each by name and house address, gone even to one’s place for lunch, once- they’d had turkey sandwiches with cranberry jam in them, just how he likes them, absolutely wonderful). “You want to play a game?” Ren pipes up something either fifteen minutes or seconds later. “Come here, I’ve got a game.”

“Oh, joy! Is it Don’t Whiz on the-”

“It’s called Do Coke and Don’t Talk.” 

A four dollar bill rolls up in his hand, and he hunches forward enough to inhale half a line whilst Stimpy leers uncertainly over his shoulder. “Gee, I dunno, Ren… You’ve told me not to play with your grown-up powder before.”

Ren would admit he’s hardly listening when he sits back up straight, swollen eyelids clenched shut and fingers taming the burn at his nostrils. In a sharp wince, he tightens up his face and lets it relax again, eyeing Stimpy in bold curiosity. “I give my permission. C’mon. Let us ring in this joyous New Year together.”

“Is the year over already?” Stimpy says, eyes lifting enough to spell surprise. “Wow. I should start working on my resolutions soon.”

“ _I’ve_ got a resolution,” Ren sticks in, turning to take Stimpy by the hands and gaze melodically at him. “In this, the wondrous year of 1991, I’m going to spend all my time nurturing the beautiful relationship we’ve built together. Oh, Stimpy, why, I’m going to become the man of your _dreams_.”

“You already are the man of my dreams, Ren,” Stimpy says with all his teeth grinning white, and he allows his hands be squeezed and doesn’t flinch, either, when his sweet and darling boyfriend smiles just as brightly in his own crooked, chipped, yellowed way. 

“Great, so you’ll do a line with me, then.”

“I don’t know-”

“Come _on._ You smoke like the reefer industry is going out of business. There’s no-”

“I-I don’t want it to hurt.”

Without hesitation, Ren flicks a wrist and backhands him with everything he’s got. 

“ _That_ didn’t hurt, did it?”

Stimpy pushes loudly his jaw back into place and screws his nose the right way just to whisk up a thoughtful expression. “Nope, not a bit.”

“Good,” Ren says, and shoves the rolled up bill into his hand. “Finish that last line. You don’t want it to go to waste, do you?”

“Oh, no, Ren,” Stimpy swallows. He leans forward the same way Ren does, stares at the thin line of white powder and whatever else is mixed in. Ren can feel the outline of his heart’s chambers as they beat against the skin of his chest. He’s scratching again when Stimpy sits upright beside him, smacking his lips and sticking his tongue out at the new sensations living inside him.

“See. Not bad at all.” He thumbs a smirk of coke residue off Stimpy’s nose and licks it up. “Where’d my dollar go?”

Stimpy taps his lip with an index finger. “Hey, Ren, you’re- you’re not gonna tell my mom about this, are you?”

“What? What do I care about tattling on you for?” A few plastic cups lift from their places along the table, some half drunk juice and others water with cigarette stubs floating. Ren gives up his search after lifting the Christmas card he’d used to cut lines and getting distracted by its inscription inside. _Praying for you and yours this Christmas season._ _Love Mom & Dad. _ Ren closes the card and licks the coke off the edges. 

“Hey, Ren, I’m not gonna die, am I?”

Lower lid twitching, Ren tosses the card back on the table and turns toward him. “What’s with all these questions? Can’t you just enjoy the high like any normal person?”

“Oh, Jesus, there’s a- there’s a talking dog sitting next to me right now.”

“Will you pull yourself together, man?” says Ren and the slap he bludgeons Stimpy’s cheek with. “You’re acting even more stupid than usual.”

“Okay, okay,” Stimpy exhales, though Ren watches all his fingers shake when they lift to his mouth. “So, whaddaya wanna do now? Go for a run? Clean the whole house?”

“It’s nine o’clock at night.” Stimpy’s leg starts to bounce against the floor. Ren’s hand lays heavy on his thigh. “Relax. You’re gonna feel like a million bucks in a minute. You aren’t gonna remember what sad feels like. You’re sad, aren’t you, Stimpy?” 

“Well…” With one finger he strums his bottom lip. “The holidays...can be stressful.”

“So stressful,” Ren coos, massaging both hands on Stimpy’s broad shoulders. “That’s why it’s okay to do illicit things. The police are merely enemies of happiness.”

“Uh-huh,” Stimpy nods, staring off at the far white wall of the den. “My New Year’s resolution is to make you as happy as possible.”

Ren’s standing beside the couch now, not that he recalls getting there. The space heater breathes against his quivering calves. “Wow! Mine’s to off myself by June.”

“But you said yours earlier.”

“I did?”

“Did what?” Stimpy itches his fingers beside a dried corner of his mouth. “Do you wanna clean the kitchen?”

“No, do _you_ wanna floss my toes?”

“I’d love to!” Stimpy chimes, then lays a wide-pupil gaze at his splayed hands. “If I had any fingers.”

“Let’s have sex,” Ren says, to which Stimpy shouts, “ _Okay!”_ and flies so quickly up to standing that he falls to his hands and knees on the living room carpet. 

“What’re you doing down there?” Ren nudges Stimpy’s soft tummy with the tips of his puppy toes. “Get up, we have a bathroom to clean.”

“Yeah, yeah,” comes breathlessly from Stimpy’s rug-burned mouth when he lifts his head. Quavering arms reach out to push himself up. “H-Hey, do you remember that movie from when we were kids where Robin Hood was played by that sexy fox guy and they saved that sexy fox girl and there’s the part where they’re shooting-shooting all the arrows and they’re all shooting arrows in the arrow contest- that’s what I feel like right now, Ren.”

“Okay,” Ren says. “Well, get up. Laundry’s not gonna do itself.”

“I thought we were washing the windows,” Stimpy says, clamoring his claws up the armchair beside them.

Pink eyes scroll to where the paint chips hang from the ceiling. “You idiot. Can’t you keep a thought in your head for two seconds? We’re going to unpack all our stuff from the boxes in the bedroom. Moron.”

“Ren,” Stimpy swallows, tripping on himself to walk forward. “I can’t feel my throat.”

“Yap. You get used to it.” Hands offer themselves to Stimpy at the back, guiding him to go forward toward the bedroom door as he walks behind. “You become an adult, you stop feeling your throat and yer nose, holidays aren’t fun anymore, and then you die.”

“Okay,” Stimpy nods. “We should-we should go to Walmart and get some more grown-up powder. I-I feel _great!”_

“You buy it behind Walmart, not in it. And don’t go getting addicted. This shit is way too expensive, get hooked on crack instead.”

“Okay, Ren, okay.”

“Okay.” Pushed past the echoing creak of the door, they’re standing in the bedroom now and Ren’s eye wanders everywhere but intention. He scratches at the back of his neck. There’s a few stray boxes round the big center bed and its grand headboard, and just maybe he’s stared at their comforter for so long that it no longer looks so inviting as it does vicious. But he’s sure it means no harm, even tests it with a drop of his hand down on the bed. It doesn’t bite. Only burns. Kind of in a nice way. And he knows he’s got to get to work hanging the curtains up, but the half line he snorted last is teetering off and he might as well join it, that’s what Ren thinks as he falls face first into their bed that’s never in his life felt nearly as comfortable. 

He only ever gets out of it because he stops breathing in his sleep long enough to wake him in hard dry coughs. Nothing new. So much for all the anticipated glory of ‘91. Ren crunches out of bed that morning, comforter still made and tucked underneath his dead weight, and every ache he’d had lifted away last night comes back thrice over to julienne him right down the spine. Shuffling from the bedroom, his robe is vermillion and untied, his eyes are stinging in the light, his joints throb in their sockets. He clears his throat- oh, huh. There it is afterall.

“Good morning, Ren!” he’s nothing if not astonished to hear greet him as he comes through the living room. 

“Oh. You’re still alive.” Slippered feet start toward the kitchen entry, but Stimpy’s an obstacle in his path within seconds to tell him, “Yep. And look, I finished it. Here, Ren, _for you.”_

Ren blinks his tender eyelids, comes to enough to reach out and grasp the lush pink fabric offered out to him. He slips his robe off and lets it lay on the floor. Its warmth only ever could pale in comparison to that of the thick sweater he shoves himself into.

“I know how cold you’ve been lately. You don’t have any meat on your bones to keep them warm.” When he looks closely, Ren can see the red rim of exhaustion round Stimpy’s eyes, but Stimpy only kneads the pink yarn of his shoulder and goes on, “But _now_ you’ll stay nice and warm. And you look so handsome, too. And so soft. I can’t wait to cuddle you in that.”

“You’re excellent to me,” Ren says when he leans up on his toes to kiss his mouth. Just once. “I know better than to think you slept at all last night, though.”

“Oh, yes,” Stimpy nods, still grinning, still pink beneath the eyes at all the tenderness. “It’s just amazing how much you can get done when you don’t! Lookit, I put up all the curtains, too. And cleaned out the litter box. And there’s coffee in the kitchen, go ahead and have some.”

“Don’t get into my mindset, Stimpy,” Ren warns with a tall finger wagging at him. “You’ll never come back once you realize what a useful alloy is made of coke and no sleep. Celebrations like that are to be had only on the most special occasions.”

“Sure. What’s an alloy?”

Tempered, Ren walks past him just to find the kitchen. A long sip goes to the mug of black coffee he pours, and higher his brows once he picks up today’s newspaper off the counter and reads the date _DEC. 31, 1990._

The coffee cup shatters into the sink. Ren in his brand new sweater yanks the refrigerator door open just to grab a bottle of liquor by the neck and slam it shut again. “Stimpy, get the nice shot glasses out, we’re ringing in the beautiful New Year tonight!”


End file.
